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Nicholas Totin
Dr. Peeler
Writing about Literature
September 26, 2013
Identifying the Boundaries of Consequence
Cask of Amontillado draws on the inability of any human being to commit crimes
against humanity without having, at minimum, an effect in the conscious, if not having
public consequences as well. The narrator, Montresor, yearns to carryout revenge against a
man named Fortunato who has apparently insulted him beyond reproach. Montresor’s
wish, however, is not only to find revenge but to do so without any negative repercussions
at all. The Montresor family coat of arms pictures a human foot crushing the head of a
unyielding serpent. The motto on their crest is, “Nemo me impune lacessit” (Poe), which
translates to, “No one can harm me unpunished.” So Montresor’s family is, quite literally,
known for the seeking out vengeance. Because guilt carries a level of personal
imprisonment of the mind and Montresor lives with a guilty conscious of his revenge, he is
not successful in his attempt to achieve revenge with impunity.
Montresor reaches a personal breaking point with Fortunato that prompts his plan
for revenge. However, with Montresor’s account being the only one we have in regards to
any actions leading up to his revenge plot against Fortunato, the audience is unsure exactly
what Fortunato has done to Montresor to elicit his reaction. “The thousand injuries of
Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge,”
(Poe). Whether or not Poe intended the listener to be another unnamed character, or
simply the audience of the piece if difficult to determine. The only reference we get to the
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listener is, “You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that
gave utterance to a threat,” (Poe). It can be interpreted as perhaps a member of the clergy
who is listening to Montresor’s final testimony while he lay on his deathbed. Sharing this
story with a clergy member is a definite sign of wanting his conscious to be cleared in
regards to the murder before Montresor dies.
Through Montresor’s description of his plan, he tells the audience his goal is to, “not
only punish but punish with impunity,” (Poe). According to Webster’s Dictionary, impunity
is defined as, “Exemption from punishment or freedom from the harmful or injurious
consequences of an action,” (Impunity). So what does it mean to punish with impunity?
Montresor essentially wants to carry out revenge against Fortunato without receiving any
consequences or negative reciprocations.
In the opening of the narrative, Montresor outlines a very specific set of rules to his
revenge. You “will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat” (Poe).
Montresor never intends to give Fortunato any reason to believe Montresor has a grievance
with Fortunato. “At length I would be avenged” (Poe), Montresor says. He continues by
saying in the line, “but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the
idea of risk” (Poe), that it is certain in his mind he will get revenge even though the idea of
revenge is overshadowing the risks. The last part of his set of rules includes a major
foreshadowing to the guilt he will suffer following the act of killing Fortunato. “A wrong is
unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the
avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong” (Poe). Montresor
is stating that if either he is over taken by the revenge, or, if Fortunato does not ever feel
that is it revenge, he will be unsuccessful.
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Montresor uses Fortunato’s own ego against him to lead Fortunato to his own
demise. Because Fortunato considers him a wine connoisseur, the mere mention of a pipe
of Amontillado is enough to make him beg to see it. Montresor called Fortunato’s expertise
in wine his weak point, knowing that Montresor can draw on it to manipulate Fortunato.
Knowing that Fortunato will object, Montresor says to him, “As you are engaged, I am on
my way to Luchesi. If any one has a critical turn, it is he” (Poe). Fortunato responds,
“Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry” (Poe). Montresor continues to push until
Fortunato finally decides that the two men are going to Montresor’s pipe, no
questions asked.
During their descent in the catacombs, Fortunato asks for a drink of a different wine
in an attempt to stifle his cough. Fortunato downs the last of the wine and makes a strange
gesture with the bottle. When Montresor looks puzzled, Fortunato asks him if he is a
member of the Brotherhood meaning the masons. When Montresor tries to say that he is,
Fortunato asks him for, “A sign” (Poe), to which Montresor produces a trowel from his
roquelaire. From this, it’s clear to Fortunato that he is not a mason because the proper sign
would either be the masons’ handshake or a steel square. Montresor divulges a piece of his
plan to Fortunato in this exchange. If he were truly a mason, he would know that the
symbols are a compass and a square, not a stone worker’s trowel. Without even knowing it,
Montresor broke one of his own boundaries of revenge, “It must be understood that neither
by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will” (Poe).
After luring Fortunato into the depth niche of the catacombs, Montresor chains
Fortunato to a wall and then begins erecting a wall to completely enclose his victim. During
his building process, Fortunato starts yelling at the top of his lungs, struggling to free the
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chain. Montresor has a nervous reaction to Fortunato’s screams and begins to yell back at
an even louder volume. Doing so cause Fortunato to stop his own yelling, after which,
Montresor reports that he, “struggled with [the final bricks] weight” (Poe). It’s Montresor’s
words near the end of his task that show the audience a slight bit of second-guessing in
what he’s done. During an exchange of words with Fortunato calls out, “For the love of God,
Montresor!” (Poe), to which Montresor responds, ““Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!” (Poe).
When he finally stops replying, Montresor says, “But to these words I hearkened in vain for
a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud,” (Poe). Montresor desperately wants to hear a
reply from Fortunato.
After calling Fortunato’s name Montresor continues, “No answer still. I thrust a
torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only
a jingling of the bells,” (Poe). Because Fortunato does not reply, it suggests that he has
either fainted or died. The jingle of the bells on his clothing could have come from being hit
by the torch or his head falling. “My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs
that made it so,” (Poe). Montresor attempts to cover up his guilty feelings by blaming his
heartache on the dampness of the catacombs where he is working. But the placement of the
detail in respect to the narrative leads the audience to believe that his heart growing sick is
in direct response to learning that Fortunato has died. Regardless, Montresor finishes
his work.
Montresor ends the narrative with the Latin phrase, “In pace requiescat,” (Poe),
which translates to Rest in Peace. If he were referring to Fortunato, it would suggest that
Montresor feels a certain level of guilt about what he’s done. Even though he never
received any type of public punishment from authorities or even civilians, a guilty
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conscious is certainly a negative reciprocation of murdering Fortunato. If Montresor were
actually referring to himself, it can be interpreted that he now feels a certain degree of
relief having attempted to clear his guilty conscious. Montresor could be thinking that he
can now rest in peace knowing that he came clean about his act of vengeance.
Montresor succeeds in his task of revenge, but through multiple excerpts from the
text, we see that he lives with guilt from killing Fortunato. Whether knowingly or
unknowingly, Montresor breaks many of his own rules for vengeance during the course of
the narrative. His own heart grows sick and he nearly fails to complete the task due to the
level of guilt he’s facing. Because his stated goal was to punish with impunity, it is clear that
he did not actually succeed. Guilt is certainly a negative repercussion. He not only
experiences guilt while he’s doing it, but lives with the guilt for a very long time to the point
of wanting to get it off of his conscious before he dies. Montresor failed to carry out revenge
with impunity on Fortunato because of the level of guilt he experience in response to his
actions.
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Works Cited
Poe, Edgar A. "The Cask of Amontillado." Project Gutenburg. N.p., 16 Sept. 2013. Web. 6 June
2010.
"Impunity." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2012. Web. 18 Sept 2013.